Crowds and Long Delays Fray Subway System and Riders’ Nerves

A train at the Times Square station in Manhattan. On Sunday, the subway system’s base fare will rise to $2.75, from $2.50. More increases are expected.Credit
Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Fares are about to go up. Delays are driving riders to distraction. And on a recent evening, Ian Nolan’s train was out of service.

Widespread problems across the subway system in recent weeks have left weary commuters waiting on crowded platforms, stranded inside stalled cars and scrambling to find alternate routes. With a fare increase set to go into effect on Sunday, riders across New York City are complaining of having to pay more when service is worse.

But transit experts and advocates say conditions will not improve unless the Metropolitan Transportation Authority invests heavily in upgrading and expanding the system’s infrastructure — the tracks, the trains and the tunnels that power the city’s daily transit miracle, except when they don’t.

Leaving his stranded train behind, Mr. Nolan, 25, who lives in the East Village, hustled out of a station near Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan and hailed a cab in hopes of making it to an event for the beer company he works for. “My anxiety levels were off the charts,” he said.

“We are seeing a system that is bursting at the seams in terms of increased ridership,” Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the transportation agency, said.

One night last week, the F train was slow through Queens, the No. 5 train was held up in Lower Manhattan and the L line was disrupted by a train with mechanical problems in Brooklyn.

Riders are not suffering in silence. Last week, scores of them gathered for a rally in Queens to protest service on the No. 7 line. Riders Alliance, an advocacy group, is collecting hundreds of subway “horror” stories this week to send to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Legislature.

On Sunday, the base fare will rise to $2.75, from $2.50, the latest in what the authority has said will be regular — and necessary — increases.

Photo

MTA workers perform maintenance on the number 7 train line in Queens during a day of limited service and delay on the line.Credit
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Transit advocates say that while they understand the angst over another fare increase, they are focused on securing money from state and city officials for the authority’s capital plan, which includes many of the very upgrades that would bring meaningful improvement to commutes. The plan proposes $32 billion in spending over five years, but it is $15 billion short — the largest funding gap ever and a striking sign of the difference between what the system needs and what the authority can afford.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has called the plan “bloated” and has not addressed the funding gap, instead publicly drawing attention to other infrastructure projects, including a new Tappan Zee Bridge and his proposal for an AirTrain to La Guardia Airport. But the authority’s chairman, Thomas F. Prendergast, has argued that the measures outlined in the capital plan are essential, such as replacing aging cars and tracks, modernizing the signal system so more trains can run and beginning the next phase of the Second Avenue subway.

For most riders, their only regular connection to the agency’s budget is the money they load onto their MetroCards. While some believe the authority makes a profit by charging more than the ride costs, the system is, in fact, heavily subsidized, with fares making up about 40 percent of its operating revenue. Experts have called for a more sustainable source of funding; one proposal, by Move NY, would establish tolls for drivers on the East River bridges in Manhattan, an idea that was rejected in Albany in 2008.

The most recent transportation authority statistics reveal that train delays increased in 2014, and new figures for January and February will probably reflect worsening delays, Mr. Ortiz said.

One metric called “wait assessment” — essentially whether trains arrive at platforms on time — decreased by 1.5 percent across the system in 2014 compared with 2013, and long gaps in time between trains rose to 6.4 percent, from 3.9 percent. Officials attributed the delays over the last year to several factors: an increase in track work, much of it in response to Hurricane Sandy; more aggressive track inspections; and safety slowdowns through work areas.

Mr. Ortiz attributed the recent uptick in delays this year to snow and low temperatures that caused rails to break and ice over, but transit advocates say the subway should be able to handle Northeast winters.

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“Our subway system should not be this fragile,” said John Raskin, executive director of Riders Alliance. “People should be able to rely on effective mass transit even if there is snow.”

In the past month, Lisamarie Green, 26, a skin care specialist who lives in Astoria, Queens, said she had to take taxis home from her job in Midtown at least three times because of train problems on the E, M and R trains — the lines she usually takes.

“You can’t get from one place to another any cheaper, but it’s hard to count on all the time,” Ms. Green said on a recent morning at Queens Plaza. “I never know how long it’s going to take to get from one place to another. It’s hard to live like that.”

Another rider, Rohana Elias-Reyes, 46, an arts administrator at the New School who lives in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, found herself sprinting to an appointment in Manhattan last week with her son in tow after a delay on the B train.

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Commuters pushed through a crowd to get on an uptown 2 train at Times Square station in Manhattan.Credit
Yana Paskova for The New York Times

“It makes me panic,” she said of an unexpected delay, “because you’re trying to cut things as close as you can, and you know you’re going to be late somewhere you promised to be.”

Even when there is money for improvements, the ensuing disruptions only feed rider frustration. On the No. 7 line, where a more advanced signal system is being installed to allow more trains to run, a City Council member from Queens, Jimmy Van Bramer, criticized recent delays and track work that shut down service on weekends, including this month on the day of St. Pat’s for All parade in Sunnyside.

The authority should install the signal system, known as communications-based train control, on a more aggressive schedule, said Charles Brecher, the consulting research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-financed fiscal watchdog group.

“We’ve got to update the system,” he said. “It’s going to be inconvenient, and riders need to get used to it.”

Mr. Brecher has called for other measures to improve service and shore up the authority’s finances, including higher subsidies for the agency from drivers’ tolls and fees. Move NY organizers say their plan, which also lowers tolls on some other bridges, would fully finance the capital program.

As he rode the No. 6 train on a recent afternoon, Scott Singer, 62, a lawyer who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said he supported the tolls plan because the authority was too dependent on fare revenues.

“I think we should have done it 35 years ago,” he said. “I’ve always thought it was insane there were no tolls on those bridges.”

For now, riders are bracing for the fare increase. Many commuters who use the 30-day pass say they can absorb the extra $4.50 a month while it will be harder on riders with low incomes.

Solomon Stewart, 40, of the Bronx, said he received a free MetroCard through a job-training program while he looks for work. Otherwise, it would be difficult for him to cobble together $2.75.

“I’d be out there scrambling to get on the train,” he said.

Rebecca White contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2015, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Crowds and Long Delays Fray Subway System and Riders’ Nerves. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe